(9) It’s a HOOT to finally see you

It’s been another waiting game since the blood tests.  I’m officially 6 weeks, 3 days pregnant.  But I still don’t feel any different.  If I didn’t take those home pregnancy tests and blood tests, I wouldn’t know I was pregnant.  Some would say I am lucky.  But at least with symptoms you know for sure you are still pregnant.  I’m still feeling confident (and I’m trying to B Positive!), but it would just be nice to have some kind of indicator.

Today is April 22^nd.  Twenty years ago on the 21^th of April Tom and I were happily married.  Many couples would go on an exotic trip, exchange lovely gifts, or head out for a romantic dinner for their 20th.  I knew when I offered that this could be the result and therefor I could potentially be pregnant on our anniversary. Twenty years ago, I was confident in our wedding vows of “to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and health, until death do us part.”  I guess we both meant it!  Back then, we had no idea we’d be doing something like this 20 years later.  I am forever grateful that I have a husband who loves me enough to support me through this life changing journey.  I couldn’t do this without his support!

All right, back to April 22^nd.  It’s time to have an ultrasound to see what’s happening in my uterus. The uterus is located very low in the rear abdomen, especially when it’s small.  Even using ultrasound, seeing what is going on in there is a little difficult through the top of the belly until the uterus is large enough to protrude up.  So they have to use an ultrasound wand.  And yes, you guessed it:  they have to go in vaginally (oh yay!).  My modesty went out the window weeks ago, so what’s one more privacy invasion.   So, all four of us are in the examination room again.  Holly is sitting in the chair next to me, Darren is standing behind her left shoulder and Tom is in a chair next to Holly.  There is a lovely flat screen TV mounted on the wall I front of us, where we’ll see the ultrasound images.

First, the ultrasound tech (a man BTW) wants to get a view from the top.  He warns me this will be uncomfortable because he’s basically going to have to squish all my organs out of the way to see anything.  I say, no problem, I can take it – but I’m thinking “can my bladder?”  He starts pushing down hard trying to find a sac in there.  He sees two sacs, but one appears empty, which is apparently not that unusual.  Holly is happy, but her emotions seem tempered somewhat seeing “just one” future baby.  The tech takes some measurements, and then decides to take a look from, well you know where.  I help the ultrasound tech place the wand in the proper place.  He scans around, suddenly confirming two “occupied” sacs and announces “and there are twins!”  Holly says “oh my god, I’m going to cry”.  Previously, one of the embryos was “hiding”, so the tech really had to maneuver that wand to get him/her on the screen.  When he finally got a decent image, the two occupied sacs and the surrounding uterus looked just like the face of an owl.  Hoot!  Hoot!  Holly is secretly videotaping all of this on her phone.  Apparently you’re not allowed to record these things because the clinic doesn’t want evidence that could be used against them.  Yeah, whatever!  The tech then goes on to measure their heartbeats, and Holly secretly records that too.  Everything looks normal.  Holly is now sobbing, and I am too.  We are all now crying, oh I mean just us girls ;-)

Two small embryos forming

Now at this early stage of the game we are unsure if both embryos implanted or if one of them split.  The odds of an embryo splitting is higher when they’ve been frozen.  So the likelihood that both implanted and both split was pretty high.  I could have been pregnant with quads!  I’m happy and relieved to see that there are “only” two babies in there.  It was quite possible I could have had a litter!  Whew!  But we won’t know until later if they are identical or fraternal.